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| Illustration I used to inspire my D&D ranger character, by Yael Nathan |
About ten years ago, I had a question: did Dungeons and Dragons really have to be like that?
By like that, I meant: did it have to be orcish, dragon-centric, focused on fighting, looting and pillaging, with trudges through the wilderness, and with esoteric and frankly incomprehensible spellcasting and points to bring it all together? From the outside, Dungeons and Dragons seemed like a complex system of math (help) married to the agonies of improv (yikes), against a backdrop of endless play (oh no).
It also, against all odds, had started to seem incredibly fun.
Dungeons and Dragons occupied a strange social space when I was younger. In the late '90s and early 2000s, it was firmly for the boys—no self-respecting girl would have been caught dead with a D20—and it was for the nerdiest boys: the type who grew unfortunate goatees in the tenth grade, who ran the tech board for the theatre club, and whose girlfriends, if any, were band nerds or theatre kids. This is stereotypical, of course; it's possible that the guys who started fight clubs in their basements while drunk on ill-gotten whiskey also played D&D, but somehow I doubt it.
This suspicion, this rejection of D&D as something weird, was probably tied to the cultural baggage it carried. Invented in the mid-1970s, D&D kicked off a boom of what is known as table-top role play games (TTRPGS), so called to differentiate them from video games and live-action role playing (which is, if possible, even nerdier). The game started off complicated, with magic, hit points, experience points, improvisation, role-playing, a variety of dice, and myriad enemies, allies and passers-by to interact with. D&D has seen various updates to its game play and mechanics over the years, some more popular than others—I was once pinioned at a party by a man who had very strong feelings about something called "5e," a concept with which I am only vaguely familiar—but overall, the basic recipe of characters + randomization + role-playing has held strong. This formula has not always been popular, as evidenced by the moral panic it produced in the 1980s over its so-called Satanist themes, but over the years, it has remained a steady element of pop culture, occupying shelf space next to Grateful Dead or Phish tour followers, anime fans, or American Girl doll collectors: a bit strange from the outside, but ultimately benign.
More recently, though, there has been a social shift. Shows like Critical Role, which debuted in 2015, and Dimension 20, which came along in 2018, have done much to complicate and broaden what Dungeons and Dragons can be. I've watched six seasons of Dimension 20, and on paper, it sounds so simple: the actors, mostly comedians and improv folks, gather in a small group to role-play as their characters (sometimes with miniature figures representing them on a table-sized game field, often not), while the dungeon master, or DM, guides them through social encounters and battles with adversaries. The parties are usually a mix of fighter types and magic users, so a fight scene might include someone who lands a kung fu-style flurry of blows on an enemy, while a fellow adventurer follows it up with a literal bolt of lightning. It does not sound like it would be compelling entertainment, but it is. Live shows have sold out Madison Square Gardens, with tickets selling for more than Taylor Swift tickets on the aftermarket.
Dungeons & Dragons has also become a bona fide community-builder. Studies have shown that playing the game can boost agency and self-efficacy (no wonder those high school nerds were so weirdly confident), and it's become a relatively routine activity at youth community centres, libraries, and even in therapists' offices. Seems like having a creative outlet is good for us! And if we can get over the math and the improv of it all, and we can find a willing guide, getting started is not so tough after all.
My own foray into D&D started about ten years ago, when I mused on Facebook about if there was such a thing as "femme" D&D. In the game, many of the characters are barbarians or rogues, warlocks or monks. It's not guaranteed that the resultant characters (and the people playing them) are male, but it's certainly a statistical probability. Why, I wondered, could there not be the character class of midwife? Or of knitter? Or perhaps crone? My supportive and game-minded friend Emmett guided us through some introductory sessions, and then we evolved into a regular online game over the pandemic. I played a ranger who loved to drink in bars and who was scared to shoot the first arrow. (Myself; I have to admit I played myself.)
Of course, the player experience is very different from the game master experience. While Emmett was drawing up new plans for adventure each week, all I had to do was show up and remember if I was wounded or not. I was certainly aware of the work he was putting in, but I didn't really have a sense of what that all meant until I started watching Dimension 20. Each season has had its own flavour, point of view, and raison d'etre, all of it spinning around the centre of the show, GM Brennan Lee Mulligan. He is masterminding the story, responding to improvised developments, managing the outcomes of dice rolls, and remembering which accent belongs to each of the literal dozens of characters he embodies in any given episode. It is nearly magical; it is definitely genius at work. But it's also a masterclass in how to respond to the game and to the players, to develop gaming instinct, to have the confidence to become robustly silly. Gulping down one episode after another, it became clear that he was having the most fun.
So, when my child turned ten and proposed a Stranger Things-themed birthday party, I had an amendment: how about a little D&D? The library had just acquired a Stranger Things-themed version of the game specifically designed for beginners, so I didn't even have to come up with a story. I could just open the box, toss out the character cards, and play.
I mean, I could. What I actually did was meticulously go through the monsters, the characters, the story (multiple times), the exit strategies if the campaign was a flop (and it could have been—one young friend declared himself "bored" immediately and moped at the game table instead of playing). Preparation is exhausting, but it also make the actual moment flow more smoothly.
The DMing experience was weirdly exhilarating. Six fourth graders gathered around a table, and I kicked us off by pretending to be a goblin—OMG, mom, so cringe. But rather quickly, they got into it. I had a stock Cockney accent to deploy for the gnolls, a chance to improvise a magical-weapon scene, and soon enough, the party's two little girls were happily ruining a demogorgon's day. Everyone took home a set of dice as a party favour, and I put myself to bed, absolutely shell-shocked at how much energy it took to deliver even a beginner's session that had been prepared for me.
Would I DM again? Emphatic yes. The rush of on-the-fly problem solving, combined with the opportunity to get weird (and to find out exactly what a gnoll is) somehow overrides my perfectionist tendencies. I don't need to memorize book's worth of information to run a session; I just need to figure out what toys I'm putting in the sandbox this week. And feeling competent and confident—both as myself and the characters I play—is empowering as hell. I claim my place among the D&D nerds with pride.
